The Witness

Front Cover
Serpent's Tail, 2009 - Fiction - 167 pages

In sixteenth-century Spain, a cabin boy is bound for the New World. An inland expedition ends in disaster when it is attacked by Indians, leaving the young boy, as sole survivor, to face his fate amidst the natives.


The Witness is a reflection on memory, on the role of objects in the construction of our world, on the relationship between existence and meaning, on foreignness, cultural identity and otherness.

About the author (2009)

Born in Santa Fé, Argentina in 1937, Juan José Saer is the leading Argentinian writer of the post-Borges generation. In 1968, he moved to Paris and taught literature at the university in Rennes, Brittany. In 1998, Saer was awarded Spain's prestigious Nadal Prize. His work is translated into all major languages. He died in 2005.

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